


the stars above

by starghost



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Headaches & Migraines, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, someone is pining, the powers of a god are dangerous, you can't just pick up a magical amulet and expect nothing to happen cyrus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25756807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starghost/pseuds/starghost
Summary: After their journeys are complete, Therion moves to Atlasdam, and discovers Cyrus's new avenue of study.
Relationships: Cyrus Albright/Therion
Comments: 16
Kudos: 78





	1. discovery

When Cyrus fails to answer a knock at the door, Therion knows that it doesn't mean the man isn't home. More likely engrossed in some dusty book, but Cyrus asked that he knock, and so he goes through the motions of knocking each time, before he enters to rummage through the man's terrible pantry, sometimes to make sure the single-minded idiot had eaten decently, and occasionally drag him out to the tavern for leisurely drinks if he's gotten too deep in a research vein to find his own way out.

But now he pushes into the small cottage, and calls out Cyrus's name, as he always does before wandering freely. He hears a vague, wordless sound, and follows it.

"Cyrus? You're home?" Therion pushes through a door that's slightly ajar. 

"I'm here," Cyrus says, voice stretched thin and weak. The man is sprawled in a chair as though he'd stumbled there on accident and couldn't be bothered to improve things. A book is splayed open on his chest, of course, but he has an arm flung over his eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" Therion asks. Therion crouches by his side. There's a bruise on Cyrus's forearm, purplish and healing. Gods, was the man attacked? "Did you stay up all night researching the mating habits of gryphons?"

"Gryphons aren't real," Cyrus mutters. He doesn't move his arm. "It's nothing. I'm fine. Why did you come by?"

"Drinks. But that seems like it's not going to happen. The hells, Cyrus?"

"It's nothing, my friend. At times I am overcome with these spells, but it will pass," Cyrus says. He moves his hand to briefly rub his forehead, but keeps his eyes closed. And he returns his arm to the same shading position.

"I'm going to call an apothecary," Therion says, starting to stand.

"No, no," Cyrus protests again. "It needs little more than time. I've spoken with Alfyn about this. There are stages. If I can just fall asleep..."

"Sure, chair's a great place for that," Therion says. "Let's at least get you to your bed, if you insist you just need to sleep."

"No," Cyrus groans. "Thinking of moving. Makes me feel ill." Cyrus holds a fist to the center of his chest. Therion can see his grimace as he breathes carefully. Waiting for nausea to pass, probably. Then Cyrus says, "The first sign is a loss of concentration. But that happens normally, too, so I find it distinctly unhelpful as a bellwether. But when I am unable to focus my gaze on anything, I begin to be concerned."

With Cyrus covering his eyes, and now talking about spells and his gaze, an idea occurs to Therion. While Cyrus talks, slowly and with effort, Therion begins to move around the room. 

"I failed to notice any signs today, and so I kept fighting what I thought was a normal weariness... trying to continue my class preparations. Then I realized I could not see the words on the page. That is how it happens, you see. That's the undeniable sign of a spell, when there is nothing I can do to turn it back, and no point in denying it is coming. But by the time I was blinded by it, I could do little more than sit and wait for that stage to pass. Which it has. Though I know what the procession is, it is still a relief when I realize my vision has fully returned, and I no longer have a swath of bright blindness covering a streak of the world."

"Well, open your eyes, then," Therion says, returning to kneel by Cyrus's chair now that the room is dark.

Cyrus grimaces, then his face relaxes. He lifts his arm slowly, his eyes barely open, then lets his arm fall to his side. "How did you know to draw the curtains? I didn't have the chance."

"Lucky guess."

Cyrus blinks and focuses on Therion. "My arm  _ was _ starting to get uncomfortable," he says. 

"What'd Alfyn say about it?" Therion asks.

"Very little conclusive. We've spoken, and exchanged lengthy letters over the many months since our journeys ended. I sense that he is frustrated by the lack of answers, but he did leave me with several medicines to try," Cyrus says. He tries to sit up, then sighs back into the chair with his eyes tightly closed. "In my room, there's a chest of drawers. The top one should have a light wooden box in it."

Therion goes to the bedroom, and pauses for a moment just inside the door. Though they've shared campsites and rooms at inns all across Orsterra, this feels intensely different. The room is half-filled with Cyrus, like he's decorated, but only incidentally. Books piled here and there. A framed drawing of a ruin on the wall. A shirt left on the bed. Shoes kicked off in disarray. A small mirror propped up on top of the chest of drawers, with a fine, but poorly treated brush and a tangle of ribbons and ties for his hair. A bowl full of assorted rings, few of which are familiar to Therion. The bed is messily made with a plain patched quilt, and the pillow at the top is misshapen, from age or from mangling it into just the right shape for comfort. Therion remembers those inns, and thinks that it's the latter. 

He goes to the chest of drawers and opens the top one. Inside are squares of folded fabric—cravats, maybe, and stockings neatly arranged. So many  _ things _ this man has, Therion thinks. He spies the small oak box. Before he leaves the room, he removes the shirt from the bed and pulls the covers back.

"So what is this?" Therion asks, returning to Cyrus, who is now leaning forward onto his knees. 

"Mm," Cyrus takes a moment to find his voice. Therion holds the box open. Inside are three small dark bottles. "He explained it. I don't remember."

"You don't—? Okay. We'll just see," Therion says. He takes the bottles out one by one and sets them on a nearby table. Underneath a folded piece of paper is revealed. "Ah. Here we go. Now to read ol' sunshine's terrible scratchings."

"He said it could be age. I used to get spells like this—not like  _ this _ —when I was younger, before the Academy. It could be worsening with age," Cyrus says.

"You're not that old."

"I do have a decade on you," Cyrus sighs. "He also said something about our journeys."

"I see that," Therion says, piecing together Alfyn's notes. "There's one to try whenever you like—that it should help, whatever the cause. And one, uh, one is if you think it does have to do with what you're studying? Something about you've talked about that before."

"Mm, no," Cyrus says.

"The last one says if you have a particularly bad spell, or think it is divine—" Therion cuts off as he reads that, and glances at Cyrus. Cyrus hasn't moved. "Or related to that encounter, then it's worth a try. But only if you're really... Hmph." Therion looks at Cyrus again, who is resting his head in his hands, palms covering each eye, and seems to be gently massaging his brows. "What do you think?"

"Hm? What?" Cyrus says, his voice rough.

"Which medicine do you want to try?" Therion asks. Cyrus doesn't respond, like he's not quite listening to Therion anymore. Whether it's the pain, or some nausea, or some freshly awful symptom tormenting him, Therion doesn't particularly care. It's bad enough. He looks at Alfyn's note again, and grabs a bottle and a dropper. "The last one, then. At least it's easy to take."

Cyrus makes a noise of assent. Therion coaxes Cyrus's hands down, and with a hand on his shoulder, guides him to lean back in the chair. His eyes are open, and at first Therion thinks that a good sign, before he looks again and sees that instead of a dark hazel, they are black, purplish black, lid to lid, with a depth that is upsetting. 

His eyes are filled with stars. 

Therion gathers himself. He has seen stranger and more dangerous things. But it confirms that of everything he has on hand,  _ divine _ is the one to try. He coaxes Cyrus's mouth open enough to squeeze a few droplets on his tongue, and finds himself patting Cyrus's cheek after, as though to say,  _ good job, it's over now. _

He turns away quickly to put all the medicines back into the oak box.

When Therion turns back, Cyrus hasn't moved, but something in his face is eased. Not an easing of pain, not that fast. Alfyn would say just the thought of help can help sometimes. 

"Think you can hobble your way to bed?" Therion asks. Cyrus frowns. Therion takes the chair nearby. "Okay. Let me know. Or if you fall asleep here, I'll just drag you there."

"Heh. I will—" he pauses for a breath "—endeavor to alert you first." Cyrus shifts his head enough to give Therion a glance, before resting his head against the chair again, closing his strange, starry eyes. Only a few minutes pass before Cyrus starts to sit up, and says, "I believe I can handle a few steps."

He tries to stand on his own, and manages to make it upright before pausing, a hand still resting on the chair. He stays there, but his face is pinched. Therion comes to his side. When he takes Cyrus's arm, it feels thin.

"Come on, Professor," he says, and helps him slowly from the room. Cyrus doesn't seem to have much of a problem walking on his own, but needs Therion to keep prompting him forward, like he doesn't have the energy, or keeps forgetting what he's doing. Therion deposits him on the edge of the bed, where he sits docilely. He only looks at Therion curiously when Therion suggests he get more comfortable for bed. 

"You can sleep in your clothes, then," Therion says, but he hesitates. It's clear that Cyrus isn't really  _ there _ right now, not listening. He groans. "Fine."

Therion kneels and pulls Cyrus's shoes off, leaving them where they fall. Underneath, his ankle is tightly wrapped with a bandage, which Therion leaves. He figures most of his clothes really are fine to sleep in, at least in this case, but he unbuttons Cyrus's vest and pulls it off, thinking it might shift uncomfortably and maybe lose a button. Who knows if Cyrus thrashes in his sleep with a spell like this. Therion undoes the cravat at Cyrus's neck and tosses it on the chest of drawers. When he turns back, he sees a thin chain running under the loosened collar of Cyrus's shirt.

"Yeah, you'll choke yourself," Therion mutters. He ignores the way Cyrus is looking at him, all flushed and guileless, chalking it up to the effects of the medicine. His eyes are still stars. His eyes unsettle Therion.

"Oh, hells," Therion mutters, pulling the necklace from under the shirt. It's one of the god-talents they found on their journey. "Have you been wearing this the whole time?"

"Steorra reveals the path," Cyrus mumbles. He weakly paws at Therion's hand as Therion pulls the chain over his head. Therion can feel the slightest resistance, less like it's caught on a loose thread, and more like the chain has unexpected weight. But it comes free, and Cyrus's only reaction is to sigh. When he looks up at Therion again, his eyes seem lighter.

"Gods," Therion says, like a curse. He starts to put the necklace down, then thinks better of it. Therion wraps the necklace in the discarded cravat, then stashes it in his bag. He'll tell Cyrus later. But he doesn't want Cyrus blithely putting the thing back on.

#

**ALFYN—SAW CYRUS W/ A SPELL. GAVE HIM YR DIVINE MED. MORE DETAILS LATER. T**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh what I wouldn't give to know that my migraines were because I was overburdened by godlike powers that my frail human body couldn't sustain. that thought escalated into *gestures broadly* and since it didn't turn into the obvious alfyn/cyrus i guess i'm cytheri trash, as the kids are apt to say.
> 
> this was my procrastination fic from my epic fic that was procrastination from my actual novel, so I hope the procrastiception worked out okay <3


	2. diagnosis

> _My dear Alfyn,_
> 
> _Enclosed please find my notes on my latest spell for your edification. Therion came by in the early stages and we were able to administer one of your medicines, as I believe Therion notified you while I remained under its thrall. My notes include my feelings and recollections in as much detail as I can manage, including duration and a record of the previous day in case any causes begin to emerge—though in terms of my experience it is impossible to separate what is the medicine and what is the spell. Suffice it to say that I recovered from this latest spell better than I expected, considering how it felt by the time I was able to try the medicine. I look forward to your response after considering this new evidence._
> 
> _Therion wanted to include a more detailed note of his own, so he will finish this letter._
> 
> _Best regards to you,_ _  
> _ _Cyrus Albright_
> 
> **Cyrus was still wearing a godtalent like its any other piece of jewelery seems pretty stupid if you ask me—because its the power of a dammed god but what do I know I threw mine back in the shrine as soon as I could and now I took this one from him tho gods only know when he will realize and ask for it**
> 
> **I dont know about yr old letters and whatever you already know so heres what I know—:**
> 
> **Cyrus cld not look at any light—even a dark room seemed like a lot for him—felt sick woodnt walk at first, I found him sprawled in a chair and I think he is weaker or thinner than he used to be maybe the spells make him stop eating too since he just sleeps them off for a daye or 3**
> 
> **After medicine he got distant and slow like he was kind of asleep but he was calm**
> 
> **Worst thing tho—his eyes—his eyes were like stars—like the nite sky—it was aweful—but normal after sleep/medicine**
> 
> **Come when you can**
> 
> **sorry for all the mistakes, hate writing**
> 
> **t**

#

A day after sending the thick letter to Alfyn by a very reliable courier—slightly concerned that the urgently fast post by which he'd sent his first note was in fact a scam—Therion returns to his room in a boardinghouse at the edge of the Atlasdam Commons. Once recovered, Cyrus had promised him that those painful spells were not a daily, not even weekly, occurrence, so Therion tries to settle back into what was beginning to pass for his life. In the city, he has been exploring respectable professions, and though he finds them largely boring, he can see a use for most skills. Perhaps he _will_ choose one of them, and spend his days as a cobbler, or a smith, or a carpenter.

In the evening, someone knocks on his door.

"The lady of the house allowed me entrance," Cyrus says in his doorway. 

"Why?"

"As you all taught me, sometimes I can have a certain effect on others," he says with a more devious smile than he used to be capable of. 

"I meant why're you here, but okay," Therion says, letting him in. 

"I could say it's simply to see if you want to share a meal, but I also had a query for you. During my recent spell, I seem to have misplaced an item and wondered if you saw it while you were so selflessly helping me," Cyrus says.

"The god-talent?" Therion says. Cyrus looks surprised but gratified. "I'm not giving it back to you."

"Why ever not?"

"Why the hells do you still wear it?" Therion asks, an unintentional spike of anger coming through his words.

"It is a course of study I could not possibly turn away from, Therion. These god-talents were so rare as to be nearly unknown for generations, then we find so many of them as though guided to each shrine—while the rest of you abandoned them, I could not let such a rich vein of information about the gods, their powers, and their gifts go to waste," Cyrus says. 

"Well, you can take a break, at least," Therion says. "You're not getting it back."

"Come now, don't be silly. I won't wear it, but I do need to study it," Cyrus says. Therion crosses his arms. "It is critical that I'm able to test and observe the item."

"You've had it for a year."

"Damn it, I need it still!" Cyrus shouts. Therion doesn't flinch. He's faced worse outbursts. Cyrus marches around the room and starts to rummage around the sparse furnishings and scattering Therion's very few possessions. "This is the worst sort of thievery—not just an item belonging to me, but the potential for knowledge, you shortsighted criminal! If I can uncover how these pendants work—how it relates to Steorra—"

Cyrus turns in his search to face Therion, who leans against the doorframe uneasily. It's upsetting to watch, like the green of a sky before the worst of a storm, the world off-kilter. The insults hurt, but only a little. Hearing them from Cyrus, the words would hurt no matter how much he meant them, but Therion doesn't think he _does_ mean them. This isn't what Therion expected when he kept the necklace. He expected a bit of frustration, some wheedling, and then a deal struck for its return. He had several offers in mind, even. But this, this isn't right. This isn't Cyrus.

When Cyrus crosses the room to tower over him, Therion calmly looks up. Cyrus is as focused as he ever was in battle, angrier than Therion has seen him. He raises a hand to strike Therion—but it's easy to block, as though the conviction isn't all there.

"You can try to beat it out of me, I guess," Therion says, gripping Cyrus's wrist.

Cyrus stumbles back. Then he pushes past Therion and leaves without a word. Therion follows, and makes sure not to be subtle about it. 

In the street, Cyrus slows after a block, hesitating at a corner. Through several odd turns, he leads Therion circuitously toward an emptier area of Atlasdam, streets that are either falling apart or still being built. He stops at a fountain that has no water, and sits on the edge. Therion joins him, sitting at arm's length.

"Something is wrong," Cyrus says, voice strained.

"Do you remember the ruby dragonstone?" Therion asks, looking straight ahead. They face a building that has boards over its windows, and tools scattered across its front steps. "The pair of scholars that used to work together? The one said that they fell out because the other got obsessed with the dragonstone, and it changed him."

"I'm not like Orlick."

"Well, it's not a dragonstone," Therion says. Cyrus's brow furrows in thought.

"Then I—I can study it if I'm careful. I know that I can. I apologize for my temper," Cyrus says, as though neatly folding away the hoarse worry that was in his voice moments before. "Perhaps I'm still overtired after that spell."

"You scholars are so stupid sometimes, you know that? You think your temper is how the god-talent is messing you up, that you're angry like you've never been because it's _making_ you angry not to have it. Don't you?" Therion asks, and waits for a small nod from Cyrus. "Maybe it is. But that's not all, you idiot. What about these spells of yours?"

"I told you, I had them when I was younger."

"You said not since the Academy. You _said_ you'd gotten half a dozen since our journeys ended."

"Age can worsen—"

"I saw fucking stars in your eyes, Cyrus!" Therion half turns to him, but he's staring at the empty building with a blank expression that makes Therion ache as much as talking about the stars does. "During that spell, your eyes went black, with stars. How else would you explain it?"

"A trick of the light," Cyrus says. But like his attack earlier, it lacks conviction. 

"She's called the Starseer."

In the fading light, Cyrus sits very still, eyes fixed forward. His arms are crossed oddly, loosely. He says, "Perhaps it's not a bad thing."

"I bet that's what they all say," Therion says. He rises to stand in front of Cyrus. "Right before they can't control the magic anymore."

"It isn't dark magic," Cyrus protests.

"You think dark magic is the only kind that's dangerous? Really?" When Cyrus doesn't bother to respond, Therion reaches for him. This isn't over, he thinks, but they both need to eat. Since coming to Atlasdam, sometimes Therion has half-suspected Cyrus only eats when Therion reminds him too. Now he's worried about how true that is, and moves to coax the man up. "Come on."

"Ah!" Cyrus gasps, and pulls his arm from Therion's hand. He cradles his wrist, hand loosely at the same spot that Therion had grabbed in defense back in his room. 

"Well, change of fucking plans," Therion mutters, furious and worried. When he reaches for Cyrus this time, he's careful not to grab with any force at all, and says little as they make their way to a local apothecary.

#

"You broke his wrist?" Alfyn exclaims, a little over a week later. Therion shakes his head.

"I barely grabbed him. Like this," he says, and squeezes Alfyn's arm. "Except he was trying to hit me at the time."

"Gods," Alfyn says. They're on their way to Cyrus's cottage. "He never mentioned..."

"He didn't realize. Like the eyes, too." Therion walks with his arms tightly crossed, unhappy but starting to feel a measure of relief since Alfyn arrived. The god-talent remains hidden in a secret nook across town. Cyrus hasn't asked for it again, but twice he's been obviously, silently angry when Therion is around. Therion tries not to take it personally. Plenty of people are angry with him at any given time, and why should this be any different? But it is, and he's relieved when the simmering anger fades. 

They knock at the door, and don't wait for an answer to go in. Alfyn enters first, cheerfully calling Cyrus's name.

"In here," Cyrus responds from another room. He's sitting in what passes for a kitchen, though hardly used as such. He turns away table as they enter, an open book and a pot of tea set out. "Ah, Alfyn! What a wonderful surprise. Are you passing through on another exploration? Looking for more noxroot in the flatlands? Let me get a cup for you." Cyrus rummages in the sparse cupboards, and pours tea for all. 

"Thanks," Alfyn says. He sits in the chair nearest Cyrus, with an uneasy expression. "You know I'm not just passin' through."

"No?"

Alfyn casts a significant look at Cyrus's hand, where a bandage peeks from his sleeve. Cyrus pulls the sleeve down.

"For a mild sprain? You worry too much," Cyrus says, unable to look at either of them.

"Stop it," Therion says harshly. 

Cyrus stiffens momentarily, then he holds his hand out to Alfyn. "If what Therion has written to you made you come all this way, each of you must see some evidence that I cannot," Cyrus concedes.

"I appreciate that. I always prefer a willing patient," Alfyn says. He gently takes Cyrus's arm and begins to look him over, chatting all the while. Therion is torn between leaving so he doesn't have to watch, and staying so he can see if Cyrus is okay. He hovers in the doorway, and looks out the small window over the sink. Alfyn talks about what he's seeing—a nicely healing wrist, something between a bruise to the bone and a small fracture—and asks questions that lead him to other areas of inspection. Cyrus's eyes, of course, and a bruise on his upper arm, long discussion of the most recent spell, and then Cyrus admits to near-constant aches in his legs. After a quieter examination, Alfyn returns to the chair and stares at Cyrus with a hand to his mouth in thought.

"It's gotten better since Therion took the god-talent?" Alfyn asks.

"Perhaps? This past week I have not taught classes or lectured, and in spending more time at home I am less likely to spend hours on my feet. If there is an improvement, it may be that, yes?"

"Could be," Alfyn says. 

"Why do you ask after the god-talent when it's my legs that are weary?" Cyrus asks.

"Because between your wrist and your shins here, it looks like you've got the bones of a man forty years your senior," Alfyn says. Cyrus pales. "Now, I think it's got more to do with Steorra than you want it to, 'cause you were as fit as any of us a year ago but you're the only one who kept wearing one of those things. How often do you get a bruise?"

"I... I don't know. I always seem to have one somewhere," Cyrus says.

"How many times did something whack you on the road? I don't remember you bruising all that much," Alfyn says.

Cyrus folds his hands in his lap. "I see."

"Look. You know me too well for me to pretend everything's dandy. This is all new to me," Alfyn says with a shrug. "And when it comes to the gods, well, anything's possible."

"I know that asking after the god-talent will make it sound like—if _someone_ could study it, or one from another shrine, perhaps we would gain knowledge that might help us all," Cyrus says. He looks at Therion, worried and earnest. "Truly, I know how out of proportion my reaction was. I have tried not to ask, though I have wanted to. Oh, I have wanted to haunt you around Atlasdam in the hopes that you would reveal it." Cyrus covers his face with one hand. "But less every day. I do think it's better. But if I had suspected it was related to this weariness, this bone-deep rawness that I have been—I have a tendency to push myself too deep into my studies, you know."

"Well, if this'd gone on much longer, you could've broken something worse," Alfyn says. He packs up his apothecary's bag. "I saw a tavern round the corner. I'm gonna get us some dinner. Therion, you sticking around? Least I can do is buy you a meal, since you're the one who put all the pieces together."

Therion nods. Alfyn pats his shoulder as he leaves.

Therion keeps looking, awkwardly, at the door where Alfyn left. Brittle bones and bruising, ill-fed and a mind overloaded by lights. He could leave now. Getting Alfyn here is more than doing his part, more than paying back any of the dozen times when Cyrus saved his life on the road. Staying for dinner—they'd only say it's a return to form if he left now. But Therion is pinned to the wall.

"I didn't think to be scared when the spells returned," Cyrus says. "Or rather, I told myself it was a return. I saw the similarities and none of the differences. Every piece of what Alfyn described came on so slowly, how could I, of all people, have noticed? And how could I not? I pride myself on my observations, yet the evidence that I carry with me every day slipped right by."

The bleak note in Cyrus's voice makes Therion move at last, turning to see him staring down at his wrist. From the moment Therion decided to come to Atlasdam, he knew what his real motive was. He's never been good at lying to himself. Only others. Still, he wishes it weren't true. He'd forgotten how much it hurts to care about someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please know that i considered making graphics for the letter, and only didn't because of accessibility and not wanting to figure out image hosting/css functionality. my aesthetic soul has picked out fonts for their handwritings, though, don't you worry.
> 
> i spent a good amount of time thinking about Alfyn's ability to diagnose things and how medicine/apothecarying works within the fic version of octopath, and then I realized there are gods and magic and fighting frogs, so sure, Alfyn can determine bone density!


	3. devotion

"You have been looking for honest work to occupy your time. What of training to be a genuine apothecary? You've had some instruction from Alfyn in the field, and now this—an intensive training, right here—terrifically convenient. At least for me," Cyrus says.

"I don't want to be an apothecary," Therion says, even as he mixes up one of the salves that Alfyn had shown him before leaving Atlasdam. Though Alfyn had said there was no reason for him to stay, Therion thought he should have, at least for a few more days. Maybe weeks. Maybe until Cyrus was struck by another spell, since Therion was fixated on the idea that one was coming. But Alfyn insisted that most of Cyrus's ailments didn't require an apothecary's eyes, and what might need attention, why, Therion was there to handle, wasn't he? Therion had suggested that could change any minute, but Alfyn laughed and said he had to meet a master apothecary on some coastal island, and left.

"You are the one who put everything together, according to Alfyn. And, may I say, I don't think that I have thanked you enough for your attentiveness. I believe him that I could have gotten much worse," Cyrus says. He adds, "Perhaps you have an eye for healing, as well as for hidden valuables."

"Healing? No," Therion says, barely acknowledging the poke at his thieving skills, dormant though they are. He's been living off his old caches for a few weeks now, though Cyrus wouldn't know that.

"Then what are you doing here? I could go to another druggist here, or a trainee, for all of this. I could even do most of it myself."

It takes Therion some time to answer. He isn't sure how honest to be. He settles for deniable. "I want to help."

"You do?"

Therion spreads the salve according to the little illustration from Alfyn. It stands out in a pale green line. Across Cyrus's forehead, down the back of his neck along the bumps of his spine, following the sloping muscle that connects each side of his neck to his shoulders, under the loosened collar of his shirt as Cyrus raises his chin and studies Therion's face. This, Therion can sense, though he determinedly doesn't return the look. Barely pressing, he rubs it on the thin skin at the pulse of Cyrus's wrists. Cyrus barely winces. 

Therion says, "Did you think I came to Atlasdam by accident? With my caches, I could've bought a ship and sailed east forever."

"Then pray tell, why did you come?" Cyrus says, always missing a little bit of the point. Therion puts the salve aside.

"Scholars are inattentive and easy to pick, and you're here," Therion says, intensely focusing on cleaning up the table from making the salve. "You're the least annoying of everyone, I guess."

"Am I? Heh." Cyrus sits with his palms up on his knees, waiting for the salve to dry enough to wipe clean. His eyes are closed. "I appreciate that. I enjoy your company, Therion. You surprise me almost every time we speak. And I maintain what I once said—you would make a fine scholar, if you ever changed your mind. But if not, I'm certain you will excel at whatever vocation you choose to apply your talents to."

Therion doesn't respond to this kindness. He finishes cleaning up in silence.

A few minutes later, Therion wipes the salve from Cyrus's face and neck, then gives him the rag to finish. His skin is pinkish and damp where the rough fabric scrubs. Cyrus buttons his shirt and turns for the vest he had hung off the back of the chair.

"Now, would you like to accompany me on my constitutional? I plan to walk between every bookseller's in town," Cyrus says. Therion makes a face, and Cyrus laughs deeply. "At least accompany me to the first one."

#

Cyrus continues to have more unremarkable days than not, during which Therion can almost believe (save for a walking stick, or a faint bruise) that things are back to normal—until he doesn't. Several days in a row, Therion arrives to find Cyrus in some manner of sloth: slouched in a chair by the window, staring through the gap in the curtains; still in bed in late morning; sitting at the table, not reading the book in front of him. Each time, Cyrus claims a coincidence. A quiet moment. Then, at the table, he admits that he has had increasing trouble concentrating. 

That evening, Therion returns with a bag over his shoulder. "Just in case," Therion says.

The night is uneventful, but the next day, when the sun is high in a cloudless sky, Cyrus stands and begins to close all of the curtains. He sits again, in a chair closer to Therion. He looks slightly past Therion.

"Would you get the box from my room? I believe Alfyn left adjusted concoctions. I'm not certain that I'll require them, but it would be sensible to have them handy." 

As Therion passes, he brushes a hand over Cyrus's shoulder. It isn't like their old injuries in the wilderness. Those were clear. Cuts and blood and a sharp pain, an obvious place to heal. 

When Therion returns, he asks, "So you can't see?" 

"It's a streak in my field of vision. In some ways, it's worse than the pain to come. It's... it's so frustrating to want to see something, like you, and not be able to. If I don't look directly at you..." he says, his eyes sliding to the side, "ah, there you are. You look worried."

"Tell me why I shouldn't be," Therion says.

"Quite." Cyrus sinks back into the chair. He seems almost normal if not for his altered focus. "What if this year, this mistake of a year, has touched me for life? What if I am unmendably broken by this choice I made? And what does it say that I still want to study the god-talent? Oh, not because it draws me like it once did—I don't  _ believe _ it does, at least—but because it pains me to have knowledge sealed away, and to... to sense how much I had discovered. How much I was on the verge of understanding. Perhaps it is worth whatever damage it does to me, in order to obtain that knowledge for others."

None of this does anything to allay Therion's worries. He grips the box and stares at Cyrus. "Perhaps it's worth—! You fucking mad scholars," he spits. "Gods, how do you know the god-talents don't have a thread of dark magic in them just to exist? I remember the feel of it, like a damn slimy whisper in my ear." He shivers at the memory, still so vivid. "Let someone else get eaten alive by that thing."

Cyrus glances at Therion with surprise, then blinks with a grimace and stares past him—that looking at him without looking at him. 

"Why not me? Why sacrifice someone else?" Cyrus asks. He sighs and leans his head back on the chair. "If everything is a lesson, let my infirmity be one as well. Perhaps there is a way to safely study it. In turns, with care..." He drifts off in thought, and is silent long enough that Therion wonders if a pain has overtaken him. Then he asks, "Therion, do you think I have improved in the month since Alfyn left?"

Therion sets the box of medicine aside. He takes Cyrus's hands, one at a time, squeezing spots that used to be sensitive, and now provoke little reaction. He looks at Cyrus's eyes, which haven't succumbed to stars. He thinks of their long walks, and Cyrus's returning appetite. He lets go of Cyrus's hand after keeping it too long. 

"I'm not an apothecary," he says. "But I think so."

"Enough that there is reason to hope?"

Therion restrains his urge to get up and leave. The word itself puts a scowl on his face, out of habit, with so many years when it was meaningless. What is there to hope when all you're doing is surviving? He opens the box and looks at the new assortment, juggling the small bottles between the fingers of one hand while he glances at Alfyn's notes. Hope for what, he wonders. 

"Perhaps not," Cyrus says hollowly, and closes his eyes. 

"I don't know anything about hope," Therion says. He stares at the bottles in his hand, like little gems of odd colors. One is almost the color of Cyrus's eyes. Another is red as the ruby dragonstone. The last is clear, but it catches the dim light strangely, iridescent. "Thinking like that, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You hope and you hope for a thing you can't make happen, so—I quit bothering."

Cyrus makes a disbelieving sound. "You can't simply stop yourself from hoping for things."

"I want things, if that's what you're asking," Therion says, looking up at Cyrus. "That's not the same. I don't sit around hoping. Either I can make something happen, or I can't. And if I can't, I live through it."

"How?"

Before he answers, he looks at Cyrus the way he never lets himself, knowing full well that right now Cyrus can't quite see him, even if he opened his eyes. But there is no hope in him, only the same heartbeat, the same tentative care, a hesitant expansion of the friendship he'd barely begun to trust on their journeys. 

"The same way I started to walk again," Therion says. "One day—one step at a time. If all this goes away, it goes away. If it doesn't, it doesn't. You're alive."

"It's difficult to see how I can resume my life as I would want, if I don't improve. How am I to take on a regular class if I may be struck by a spell for two days? How am I to undertake research in the field if my strength fails to return? As I am today, I cannot go on long trips to another library, much less to ruins—what if I fell, or a spell came on while I was traveling? I would be utterly vulnerable," Cyrus says, growing weary as he goes on.

"Not if I was with you," Therion says. He's surprised how calm he is when he says it. 

"I don't need a personal apothecary, like a complete invalid," Cyrus says sharply.

"That's not why I would go."

"Then why? You do hate my lectures," Cyrus says, grimacing a little, either at the idea or because a pain has started. 

"I like the journey," Therion says, "and I've gotten used to your lectures. The tone you get isn't so grating anymore."

"Oh, well, splendid. I'm delighted that I annoy you less," Cyrus says. He blinks a few times, like he's trying to clear his vision, then holds his eyes closed a moment. "It  _ is _ passing. I wish I could urge it along."

"Passing?"

"The streak of blindness moves," Cyrus says, holding a gently curved hand up in front of him, and drawing it slowly to one side. He pauses, hand off to the left. "It's here now. Another few minutes, I think. And then we shall see what else the day will bring."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a bummer of an ending to this chapter, but so it goes. it was important to me that this is neither a dire medical situation nor an easy fix, because that's how i feel about migraines. the streak of blindness is 100% from my own experience. migraines! they're awful.


	4. declaration

The spell is shorter-lived, and less intense than before. No stars. After checking on Cyrus in the morning, Therion leaves for most of the day. It was the onset that worried him, not the long endurance, and the latter isn't as long as before—a day, rather than a slow climb to normalcy over several. It isn't satisfying to either of them. Still, soon enough Cyrus begins to talk about how to shape his life again after the weeks of forced sabbatical.

"Perhaps not a resumption of my former class schedule, but private tutoring. The gods know I need more mental activity than I have been getting. Personal research can only take me so far before I start to go too deep and get a bit strange," Cyrus says one day, as they sit on a bench in a public square. He glances at Therion to stop the inevitable comment, but all Therion is thinking is that this is one step, rather than waiting for something that won't come. Cyrus continues. "Regardless, I have written to the Academy about taking on one or two students. I suggested that I might advise a young researcher on a course different enough from my own to be interesting. Perhaps alchemical history."

Cyrus pauses as though he's asked a question, so Therion nods a little, not sure what he expects—for Therion to suggest a different subject? The nod is enough; Cyrus continues. Therion has been studying with a carpenter to fill his days, and his hands have strange new calluses developing that he can't stop exploring. He supposes he appears not to be listening, and that's why Cyrus puts a hand on his arm; perhaps he  _ wasn't _ listening, and that's why he startles. Perhaps he was thinking about the god-talent, and how he might offer it back to the scholar. But Cyrus is only making sure Therion heard that he won't be home if Therion comes by for dinner later that week, as he's accepted an invitation from a colleague.

"Do come by after, if you like," Cyrus says.

Therion does. The moon is high and bright when he approaches Cyrus's cottage, careful to come late enough that there's no chance the scholar could still be out. A warm light peeks between the curtains in the front window, and Therion doesn't bother knocking.

"I brought wine, if you haven't had enough," he calls out.

Cyrus is sprawled in a chair, but in a happily tired way. He sits up as he waves Therion in, and Therion is relieved to see him so obviously  _ fine _ . 

"No, no more wine," Cyrus says with a bright smile and half a laugh. "I'll sleep terribly if I have another drop. But I can't bear to sit inside on a night so clear and mild. I didn't want to miss you if you came by, or else I would be out wandering the cobblestones."

"Cobblestones it is." Therion puts the bottle down with a thunk like punctuation. Cyrus pushes up from the chair, grabbing a walking stick on his way. 

"My colleagues tend to be quite loquacious, even about subjects that they're not entirely experts in," Cyrus says as they exit the cottage. "It will be a relief to spend time with someone who knows the value of speech."

Said value seems to be silence, at least for stretches of their walk, in which Cyrus picks the turns and the paths they wander. Therion doesn't care what happened at the dinner, so he doesn't ask polite questions about it, only one small query about how Cyrus feels. Cyrus asks about carpentry, which Therion is lately ambivalent towards, but maybe, he says, more because of the splinters than the work. Their longest stretch of sustained conversation, before reaching a pond on the west side of Atlasdam, regards a shop that has been closed for a month, with the windows covered in paper, and their theories as to what is happening inside. Therion suggests that he could find out and end their debate since the doors can't possibly be secured with a lock beyond his talents, but Cyrus says the debate is more interesting than the answer could be.

At the pond, Therion starts down a path that circles the water, but Cyrus stops and looks thoughtfully across it. He seems content to look out over the water silently as Therion rejoins him. With the intermittent sound of owls and the faint lapping of water, Therion's mind seems very loud. His fingers toy with the chain in his pocket. He has been carrying it for days, after a week of thinking that it might, it  _ might _ be safe. And if not, he could steal it back, couldn't he? 

"Cyrus," he says, seeming to startle Cyrus out of a thought. "Maybe one of your tutoring subjects wants to study this?"

Therion pulls the god-talent out before he can change his mind. It catches the moonlight, flashing bright silver in his hand. Cyrus's eyes go to it slowly, like he doesn't quite want to look. 

"Oh, that," he says warily. The surface dances with iridescence. Cyrus glances at Therion. "It hasn't affected you at all."

"I didn't wear it. I didn't even keep it near me most of the time," Therion says. Cyrus exhales thoughtfully.

"Thank you, Therion. It would be an intriguing course of study to offer," Cyrus says. Therion keeps his hand out, waiting for Cyrus to take it. Eventually Cyrus realizes this. "It'd be best if you held it for me, I think."

Therion folds his fingers around it. "You still want to put it on."

"No! No, not like that," Cyrus says, but the protest is a little too strong. "I still recognize too many of the ill effects of the time I wore it, and who is to say that simply carrying it won't make me worsen? No, it's all too unknown. Please, Therion. I trust you to safeguard it."

With a little surprise, Therion accepts this and puts the god-talent away again. He had, in fact, no desire to wear the charm, not like the faint magnetism back when they first found each shrine. More than this, though, he is relieved that Cyrus didn't take it, though he wouldn't have offered if he truly thought it was a bad idea. Now, though. Now it's simply a necklace in his pocket, and the night air seems fresher, the stars clearer. 

When Cyrus steps forward to inspect something at the water's edge, it's with a familiar incessant curiosity that makes Therion roll his eyes. It's one thing to search for footprints or a disguised safe, and something entirely different to poke at mud with a stick because you wanted to see what creatures were just below the surface.

Thankfully, it's a stick doing the poking, so when Cyrus rejoins him, his hands are clean and dry. He holds the walking stick with both hands, as though posed in thought.

"Tonight, during the dessert course, I realized that I was looking forward to leaving far more than I was enjoying myself," Cyrus says. "Do you know why that is?"

"Enough time away from the pit, you realize it's a pit?" Therion says. Cyrus laughs softly.

"I feel no different about the Academy or these people as colleagues. Some are a pleasure to work and socialize with, while others are a chore and an obstacle to navigate. But no," Cyrus says. With a small sound of relief, Cyrus sits on a bench that faces the pond, where the moon reflects in the still water. He sets the walking stick against the bench beside him. "It was the hope that you might come by."

"Really."

"Truly," Cyrus says. He impatiently gestures for Therion to sit, already. "For all the time we spent together on our journeys, I feel that since you've come to Atlasdam there is something changed, in the best of ways. I regret that my infirmity has pushed you to spend so much time with me while I am too tired to do much more than sit, but I do not regret the time. If you had only moved here, and nothing more, I'm not sure I would... If you ever tire of helping me, you would stop, yes?" Therion only shoots Cyrus a look, which makes him nod. They both know by now it's absurd to think Therion would do anything he didn't, to some degree, want to. "I hope that if you do, you would not stop coming to see me entirely. If I made a mistake in our journey, by keeping that god-talent, perhaps it is balanced because the journey also brought me you."

Therion's heart skips, then pounds. The man was always so oblivious, overly free with compliments—that's what this is, Therion thinks. Sitting here, in the clear night, the moon high above and the stars sprinkled in the pond's reflection, with no one else in sight. Therion is seeing signs like a girl just realizing she's marriageable, and Cyrus is sitting there like it's any other night.

Except that Cyrus folds and refolds his hands in his lap. "I know I am not the man I was on that journey—perhaps I'll never undertake something so adventurous again, and perhaps you wish to, or need to, in order to be fulfilled. I am aware of your dissatisfaction in Atlasdam, sometimes. Despite your talk of never hoping, you seem to be looking for something else, something that perhaps isn't here. I would not keep you from finding what you seek. If, however, some part of you could be satisfied here, with me—"

Enough. Therion pulls Cyrus to him and kisses him mid-sentence, thinking  _ enough _ . Those words were too blatant to be unmeant, and his kiss returned is enough to bloom something unspeakable in Therion, which Cyrus might call hope and Therion calls nothing. What he seeks is finally in his grasp, finally pressing back against his lips. His hand comes to rest on Cyrus's neck, fingers just where a streak of green salve might be applied—at that thought, Therion stops.

"What is it?" Cyrus asks. Therion draws away entirely, standing and moving a few steps toward the water. A pointless move, as Cyrus follows after him. "Come now, after everything, you cannot tell me?" Cyrus takes his hand. Therion is careful not to grip his hand back, to the point of being stiff. Cyrus sighs, and steps back. "Ah. Am I made of glass now?"

"No, it has nothing to do with that," Therion says, but it sounds false. It's hard not to remember Alfyn's words, or the pain in Cyrus's face, even after months. The stars in his blank eyes.

"Even if I were not improved, I know how delicate a touch you are capable of—you have the hands of a master thief, able to steal the glasses off a man's face without detection," Cyrus says. The question he asks next, voice low and serious, sounds like an invitation, but Therion can't take it. "Do you think you cannot touch me without breaking?"

"I broke your wrist."

"When I  _ attacked _ you. When I was at my weakest," Cyrus says. He extends a hand. "Try me."

Therion reaches out and squeezes his fingers, only enough to feel them move in his. Then he steps forward and cradles Cyrus's face in his hands. He looks up at him like he did when the spell blinded Cyrus—not caring what shows on his face, more concerned with what he sees than what he appears.

"Therion," Cyrus says slowly. His eyes are locked on Therion's, clear and searching and hazel as ever. "Why did you come to Atlasdam?"

"You're not annoying," Therion says. "I kind of like your lectures."

Though he smiles, Cyrus, somehow, does not take that as a cue to gloat, but inspects Therion. "And you said nothing, all this time."

"It was enough to come for dinner. It was enough to live day by day," Therion says, letting his hands loosen and come to rest lightly on the scholar's shoulders. Cyrus touches Therion's chest, right where his heart is pounding.

"Was it enough, though?" he asks. Then he moves his hand up and to the left, to where Lucia had slashed Therion, and driven a claw into his shoulder, where a welt of a scar still stands out. A strange, conflicted look crosses his face, as though reminded of the pain Therion went through then.

"Doesn't matter. Doesn't have to be enough any more, does it?" Therion says, and then kisses him to make that look disappear.

Cyrus pulls away after too short a time, and presses his forehead to Therion's. He stays that way for several breaths, a long enough time that even Therion is tempted to speak, though he isn't sure what he'd say. He doesn't know what comes after this, not with someone like Cyrus. He doesn't imagine it's falling into bed, into arguments, into heists—yes, the first one, he hopes, but the rest of the details are a mystery. 

"I must confess that I am tired. I should return home," Cyrus says, reluctantly.

"Okay," Therion says. He retrieves Cyrus's walking stick and hands it to him. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he offers his arm to Cyrus. With a small, uncertain smile, Cyrus takes it. During their walk back, Therion hopes it's clear that it wasn't an offer of assistance at all. He holds Cyrus's arm close to his side.

When they near the cottage, Cyrus seems to come out of a deep thought, the kind that turned into an entire conversation in his head which Therion is only hearing the end of. He says, "Every day I wonder if this is as well as I get, and though you have been by my side through this, I'm not sure you consider that in the same way."

"Cyrus," Therion says. "I l— care about you, not whether you can explore ruins."

"You say that now—"

"Are you trying to talk me out of this?" Therion says, before his mind can catch up and ask what  _ this _ is.

"I simply want you to consider things fully."

Therion pauses at the cottage gate, so they're face to face. "It's a kiss, not a bonding ceremony."

"Hmm." Cyrus leans forward and kisses Therion, somehow both chaste and insistent, and far too brief. "By my count,  _ three _ kisses."

Therion laughs in surprise. "Right. You keep overthinking things and keeping a ledger of kisses, and I'll be over here living my life."

"In Atlasdam," Cyrus says in a satisfied way.

"Just down the street."

Cyrus colors a little as he says, "I thought of inviting you in for... for tea, or some pretense."

"Hm." Therion smirks.

"But I truly am tired."

"I know," Therion says. The man is wilting. The walk was probably more than he needed after his dinner party, but he had been the one leading them across town to the pond. Therion almost laughs. Cyrus had  _ led _ him there—planning the spot for his little speech. He walks Cyrus the last few steps to the door. "Tomorrow I'll come by when you're done with your tutoring."

"That's at—"

"Six. I know," Therion says. Cyrus looks at him with some surprise. Therion kicks himself for how soft he's gotten. But he has. And so what? So he's found something worth softening for. He always was a sentimental fool. He leans in close, so they're nearly cheek to cheek, and strokes Cyrus's jaw with one finger. If he could put words to thought with as much skill as Cyrus, he would find just the thing to say now, his lips close to Cyrus's ear, to seal this moment—but he's never had pretty words, only cutting ones. And better to leave it at this: one more kiss, and the promise of tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading <3
> 
> they're not going on any epic quests across the continent any time soon; maybe living is adventure enough


End file.
